Here the author of America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines focuses on the astounding revolution in women's lives over the past 50 years. In the same down-to-earth, amusing, agenda-free tone readers know from her New York Times columns, Gail Collins picks up where her earlier history left off, taking us from 1960, when most American women had to get their husbands' permission to apply for a credit card, to 2008 and Hillary Clinton's historic presidential campaign.

"Did feminism fail? Gail Collins's smart, thorough, often droll and extremely readable account of women's recent history in America not only answers this question brilliantly, but also poses new ones about the past and the present.... [The book begins] with the best summary of American women's social and political history that I've read."—NYTBR

"I should mention that Collins is at the top of my guest list for my imaginary dinner party, the theme of which would be: 'Famous fun people I'd like to meet and talk with, but probably never will.'... Readers will appreciate the exceptional detail with which Collins lays out the accepted universe of closed opportunities and limited horizons that women faced in 1960. Collins interviewed a variety of women from around the country, and it is fascinating to hear them describe a world that seems unthinkable now but which few could imagine challenging at the time."—Boston Sunday Globe